Professional athletes and bodybuilders spend countless hours in the gym every week and can afford to devote their lives to training. For the average guy though, this simply isn't possible. However, despite the fact that you can't dedicate a large amount of time to working out, you can still achieve a great physique and a high standard of fitness provided that you train with intensity and follow a structured, balanced program.
Frequency
Frequency refers to how often you train. Decide how many sessions per week you can fit in, and book them out in your daily planner. If you often have to stay late at work, attend after-work meetings or have a busy social life, then it may be a good idea to plan your sessions in for weekends or early mornings. Don't feel that you have to train every day -- the American College of Sports Medicine recommends that when training for muscle and strength gains, training twice per week is enough, and doing more will only elicit minimal gains. For fat loss, twice per week should also be enough, provided your diet is on point.
Exercise Selection 1
You may not have a huge amount of time to spend training in each session, so it's imperative that you pick exercises that give you the most bang for your buck. Your best exercise choices are compound free-weight ones. These include squats, deadlifts, bench presses, overhead presses, rows, chinups and all their variations. Pick one lower body compound exercise and two upper body compound exercises in each session, and work in a low to moderate repetition range for them -- five sets of five reps is ideal. Aim to increase the weight you use every workout.
Exercise Selection 2
While compound free-weight exercises are extremely beneficial, and should be included in every workout, you may also wish to include single-joint isolation exercises, like curls, lateral raises, leg extensions and calf raises, which just focus on individual muscle groups. Isolation exercises are very useful for bringing up your lagging body parts. Pick three isolation exercises per session, for areas which you feel need improving, and do two to three sets of 12 to 15 reps on each.
Extra Workouts
If you ever find yourself with a spare half an hour, then it's a great opportunity to get another workout in. You don't need to go to the gym -- a simple body-weight, or high-intensity cardio session can give great results. If you're training for muscle gain, then set up a body-weight circuit consisting of squats, lunges, pushups and chinups, and do this for 30 minutes. If fat loss is your goal, go for a fast-paced run, do some hill sprints, or try stair running -- all great ways to boost your fat loss.
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